


A Day in the Life

by Savoytruffle



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Depression, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-14
Updated: 2011-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savoytruffle/pseuds/Savoytruffle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard McCoy thinks about his new life after his father's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Day in the Life

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a Beatles song of the same name.

Some days he finds something to smile about.

Usually, it’s Jim, with so much excess energy to burn that sometimes just being in the same room with him is enough for a brief contact high.

Or sometimes it’s just his regular schedule when it keeps him too busy to think too much, challenges him just enough to make him feel worthwhile, but doesn’t tax him so hard that all he wants is to crawl back into bed.

For hours at a time, life can feel normal.

But it never lasts.

 

 

When he looks back now, from this terrible distance, it all seems so sudden. Like there he was, fresh out of medical school, Leonard H. McCoy, MD, placed in his first choice residency, doing his best work and being noticed for it. Newly married to the girl of his dreams and hardly able to believe she chose _him_. Ready and willing to thank her for choosing him every damn night, well and thoroughly, no matter how long his day.

There was no time – not like now with its yawning, empty days – but they made time.

And there was all the time in the world.

So there he was, strolling along, head held high, whistling a fucking tune, when it came out of nowhere – _nowhere_ , like he’d lived too well too long.

Lightning struck him down.

 

 

It wasn’t like lightning at all.

Nothing was sudden, nothing was sure. Everything was slow and vague, changing predictions, constant uncertainty and mostly just one foot in front of the other as they slowly but surely walked into hell.

But you can’t see in front of you. And you keep thinking if you just keep walking, somewhere up ahead, you’ll finally find the light.

There’s always hope.

Until there isn’t.

 

 

He wonders sometimes if that old Leo is a figment of his imagination, a nostalgic longing for halcyon days that never were. He wonders if maybe it wasn’t always like this, the livable days and the less livable days, one after another after another.

Maybe the new McCoy isn’t so new after all.

He’s certainly not improved.

Maybe he’s just the same old model, another year used.

 

 

People like to have him around because he’s good at what he does. They find him useful. And dependable.

Other people are lazy and flaky and sometimes just downright incompetent, but McCoy can be counted on to get the job done.

He likes being useful.

He’s a good doctor. And before that he was a good student. In his summer jobs he was a good worker. At home he was a good son.

That’s who he is.

That’s how he sees himself and how he sees others seeing him, and if there’s something good about him that doesn’t come down to what he can do or how well he can do it, something that makes people smile or laugh or miss his company when he’s gone, he can’t quite imagine what that would be.

He thinks about asking Jim sometimes.

For reasons Leonard cannot fathom, Jim seems to prefer Leonard’s company to the company of any other, and he could ask Jim why, but he’s afraid the kid wouldn’t find anything to say.

It’s not self-pity.

It’s just the truth.

 

 

He’s surrounded by peers and he’s pretty sure he’s one of them.

He’s there, he doesn’t smell bad, he’s good for the answers to the tough questions you know are going to show up on the test.

People don’t avoid him. Sometimes they even seek him out. And he thinks of some of them as friends – the competent ones whose work he respects and work ethic he admires. The ones whose own respect and admiration Leonard covets and cultivates.

Sometimes it feels like there’s something mutual.

But most of the time it feels like they’re over _there_ , huddled close together, laughing and joking and enjoying each other. And there’s Leonard, just a few feet away, on the outside looking in.

Or maybe he’s miles away, an impossible distance, but Leonard can still hear them, and those tantalizing snippets of connection that fill him with a longing for belonging.

Sometimes he crosses the distance, navigates an approach, digging up a smile to put on his face. They never turn him away, but it always feels like he’s come from too far, arrived too late. He never knows the right thing to say, the conversation lags, they all need to be getting somewhere, they’ll catch him later.

Sometimes Leonard makes it so _he’s_ the one who can’t stay to chat. Places to go, things to do. He’s sure they must be relieved to have him gone.

He’s just no fun.

It hurts, but he’s not even sure it matters.

They don’t know him at all.

 

 

It’s not like that with Jim, of course.

Jim always has time. Leonard couldn’t make Jim leave if he tried.

But it can’t be right to need one single person so damn much.

 

 

His father knew him.

His father knew him inside and out and loved him unconditionally.

His father was the one person he could call anytime about anything, the one person who always had the right answer, or at least the better question.

His father’s giving was boundless.

His father’s love was the foundation, the solid ground upon which the old Leo built his beautiful life.

But Leo’s father is gone now.

So is his beautiful life.

The new McCoy stands in the middle of the desert and there’s no one to hear him scream, but he keeps his mouth shut anyway.

Too afraid to let it out.

 

 

Maybe you don’t need to love your work. Maybe you just need to get it done.

He’s still good at things, after all.

He knows this in that sort of distant way that you know something when you’ve put aside your feelings and stepped back to examine the evidence. Objectively, he’s still on the honor rolls. Objectively, if a patient can be saved, Leonard saves them.

But even if he’s met expectations, he knows he hasn’t exceeded them.

His own or those of others.

Not in a long time.

He’s waiting for someone to notice.

That’s when whatever last pieces he’s held together will finally fall apart.

 

 

He screens patients for depression all the time.

Patients, and sometimes their families.

He tells then there’s no shame in getting a little help, that modern pharmacology is a miracle science.

He believes it, too.

For them.

 

 

Jim appears when Leonard wasn’t looking.

“C’mon, Bones, we’re going out.”

Maybe Jim thinks Leonard is just grumpy.

Maybe he thinks Leonard needs to get laid.

Leonard doesn’t look up. “Look, kid, I’m really not in the mood to—”

“It wasn’t a question,” Jim says. “Put on some pants.”

Or maybe he sees more than Leonard’s ever said.

Leonard’s jacket hits him in the face, followed by Jim’s voice. “Let’s go. You need to get out of here.”

Getting out might help.

Sometimes it does.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

There’s no way to know one way or the other until he’s out.

“Fine.”

He puts on the jacket and follows Jim out the door.

 

_Fin._


End file.
